Dude, Where's My Accent?
by The Phantom
Summary: Gambit becomes distressed when he realizes that, Cajun though he may be, he is lacking in the accent department. So he sets off with fellow stereotype Pyro on a riotous and accent-filled journey! Warning: contains EXTREME accents. Read with caution.


Disclaimer: I own none of the characters within. 

  
  


Author's Notes: RANDOM HUMOR-NESS! And stuff. Did anyone else notice Gambit's lack of Cajun accent? He just talks in this lilting, creepy way, and says random French things. What's up with that? Methinks that needs some fixing... 

  
  


WARNING: All accents within are completely, shamelessly, and stereotypically overdone. YARR HAR HAR!!!

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Dude, Where's My Accent?

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Gambit stared at himself forlornly in the mirror and questioned his existence. 

  
  


While the 'staring at himself in the mirror' part was hardly new, the forlorn attitude was definitely a change, and questioning his existence was something that went a bit past his usual mental strains. 

  
  


"Why me?" he said aloud. 

  
  


He cringed at the sound of his own voice, as though he were listening to fingernails being grated across the chalkboard of his mind. That actually sounded pretty good… chalkboard of his mind… He was on the verge of being proud of himself when he hastily reminded his ego that it was still bruised, and he was still allowed a few more weeks of sulking. 

  
  


Poking himself in the chest via the mirror, he challenged, "Why you?"

  
  


"Whoy you wot?"

  
  


Whipping around defensively and fully prepared to give hell to whoever had interrupted his melancholy, he was disappointed to see it was only Pyro. Had it been Colossus it would have been different, because then he would have had something to give hell about. Pyro invaded people's privacy all the time. Nothing new. 

  
  


"Whatcha starin' at yerself in the mirra foah?" 

  
  


This was the way Pyro spoke. A word ending with 'r' found itself ending in a vowel ('mirror' to 'mirra'), and 'g's at the end of present-tense verbs were entirely dropped. That was allowed, because Pyro had an Australian Accent™, and was therefore permitted to wreak havoc with the English language. 

  
  


This made Gambit's mood plummet even further, now reaching into Arctic if his mood swings could be measured with a thermometer. 

  
  


"Go away, you stupid git." He snarled morosely. 

  
  


"You can't cawl me a git! Tha's MOI insult, ya git!"

  
  


The Accent again. Gambit shuddered for good measure. 

  
  


"You and your stupid accent." 

  
  


"Wot accent? Ain't you s'posed to 'ave an accent too?" 

  
  


Moaning dramatically, Gambit threw his arms up as though in mortal agony. 

  
  


"Can't you see that I'm questioning my existence over that very question! It torments my SOOOUL!"

  
  


There was an awkward pause as Pyro shuffled through his limited vocabulary for a response. Gambit waited patiently, his arms still flung out and his expression frozen as he prepared for his reaction. 

  
  


"Emmmm…"

  
  


Pyro said 'em' instead of 'um' when thinking. This frustrated Gambit greatly, but the flicker on his face was brief, yet just as annoyed as it had always been. 

  
  


Something clicked in Pyro's Aussie-fied brain, and he snapped his fingers smartly. 

  
  


"Let's thraow a coupla shrimp on the barbee!" 

  
  


Gambit had been preparing himself for another round of histrionics. Instead, he could only slap his forehead in exasperation. 

  
  


"You idiot!" he howled. "Can't you think of anything outside of your Aussie stereotype?" 

  
  


"Emmm… down undah?"

  
  


It took every ounce of strength and willpower to keep from slapping him silly. 

  
  


"Wot made ya think of not havin' an accent anyway?"

  
  


Gambit scowled deeply, deeper, until Pyro could only assume he was lost in an Angry Memory. 

  
  


He was staring at himself in the mirror, admiring his scarlet eyes and roguish looks. He tried talking to himself for a while, which sounded absolutely marvelous, until he became aware of Pietro breathing down his neck. 

  
  


"I didn't know you had such affection for your reflection!" the speedster crowed. "But aren't you supposed to have a Cajun accent? You're from there, right?"

  
  


And then Pietro had zipped along his merry way, leaving turmoil and doubt in his wake. 

  
  


"Snap out of it, mite!"

  
  


'Mite' meant 'mate', and Gambit was marginally grateful that his companion wasn't calling him a parasite. 

  
  


"This is all Quicksilver's fault." He said at last. 

  
  


Pyro nodded sagely.

  
  


"Oy figgahed as much. Sounds loike sumthin' he would do, the little buggah!"

  
  


Gambit could only agree. It was something Pietro would do. Wasn't it Pietro that had nearly driven Evan Daniels insane after zipping by and asking "Why aren't there holes in your costume?" Figures he would wreak just as much havoc in the World of Gambit. 

  
  


"Still…" the would-be Cajun sniveled. "It hurts. It hurts because… he's right! I should have an accent! But I don't! I'm a failure!"

  
  


He contemplated flinging himself on the floor and throwing a hissy fit, but Pyro was the only one insane to pull that off and get what he wanted. Instead, Gambit settled for slumping at the mirror in manly anguish. 

  
  


"Well…" Pyro patted him awkwardly on the back. "If Oy can be a stereotype, whoy can't you?"

  
  


Gambit could practically hear the rusty gears springing to life in Pyro's brain, turning haphazardly and attempting to form an idea. When the idea came, he snapped his fingers again and slapped Gambit violently on the shoulder. 

  
  


"Accent lessons!"

  
  


"What?" Gambit was horrified. 

  
  


"There's a lot o' blokes 'ereabouts that could give ya a pointa or two when it comes ta talkin' funny! Loike me, fer instance!"

  
  


Gambit felt the fear of God stir within him at the idea of taking any sort of lessons from Pyro. 

  
  


"But I want a Cajun accent. Not an Australian one."

  
  


He could smell ozone burning as Pyro's brain locked up and began to strain at this quandary. Deciding that a meltdown must be avoided, Gambit decided to change the subject. 

  
  


"It's okay!" he said hastily. "I don't need any help!"

  
  


"X-MEN!!!"

  
  


The shriek from Pyro startled him so much that he ended up falling out of his chair on his ass. 

  
  


"X-Men?" he snorted. "There are no Cajun X-Men!"

  
  


"Who says? There's a million of 'em, roight? There's bound ta be one o' two with Cajun accents to choose from! Come on!"

  
  


Gambit was too shocked to resist when Pyro dragged him out of the Lair and in the general direction of the X-Mansion.

  
  


~

  
  


Logan was quite startled when he opened the front door to find a pair of Acolytes on his front porch. 

  
  


Sure, a pair of Acolytes wearing their civilian clothes, one of who was looking determined and the other confused, but they were Acolytes nonetheless. He popped out his claws and prepared to go into his 'KILL! KILL! KILL!' mode. 

  
  


"Whattaya want?" he grunt/snarled. 

  
  


"Oi!" Pyro squealed in delight. "You 'ave an accent too, mite!"

  
  


Logan blinked and pondered this question in the deepest parts of his mind, which was probably the equivalent of diving an inch below the surface of a glass of water. Did he have an accent? He certainly didn't speak in the standard fashion of people like Bobby Drake…

  
  


So he had an accent. This information was enough to put him in absolute shell shock. 

  
  


"Can we come in?" Pyro asked cheerfully. 

  
  


Of course, the damage had already been done, and Logan just stood there, his eyes glazed, stare vacant, and a tiny bit of drool coming out of his mouth. 

  
  


"Roight…" the Aussie said solemnly. "We'll just mike ouahselves at home, then."

  
  


~

  
  


Gambit suddenly wished he were dead. Or at least having an out-of-body experience. 

  
  


All the newest X-Students watched him with hawk eyes as he shuffled nervously through the mansion, towed by an enthusiastic Pyro, who had no idea where he was going and therefore kept wandering into closets and such. 

  
  


Finally, the pair ran into Jean Grey, who looked startled, yet still as Mary Sue-ish and beautiful as ever. 

  
  


"Can I help you?" she said, since she had no flaws and therefore no prejudice. 

  
  


"Yes you can, missy. Moi friend 'ere is lookin' foah his accent. Seems he misplaced it, er sumthin', and we've been lookin' everywheah foah it." 

  
  


Jean replayed this sentence in her mind, added 'r's and proper grammar, and managed to decipher it. 

  
  


"Oh, yes?"

  
  


Pyro beamed, and gave Gambit a hard nudge in the ribs to have some sort of reaction, prompting a miserable nod. 

  
  


"I have doubts." The wannabe Cajun said, then, for good measure, "DOOOOOOUBTS!"

  
  


"Well, I wish I could help you," Which wasn't true, and now we know Jean is a lying bitch, "But I don't have an accent. Try upstairs, third door on the left."

  
  


"Roight!" Pyro enthused, and seizing Gambit by the wrist dragged him forcibly up the winding staircase. 

  
  


~

  
  


Kurt was in his room, angsting. He spent a lot of his time angsting, actually. He had so much angst he had to write a schedule to get it all in. Ten to eleven, angst about evil mother. Eleven to noon, angst about not looking normal. Noon to one, angst about not being able to pick up chicks except for freaky ones like Amanda. 

  
  


It was so difficult being him. 

  
  


It was two-thirty, so he was currently angsting about having to spend extra time in the shower shampooing his whole body. He did not expect to be interrupted by someone kicking open his door. 

  
  


"Emergency! Emergency!" 

  
  


Pyro came barreling in, screeching like a siren and still dragging Gambit with him. He ran several times around the room for dramatic emphasis, before stopping and spotting Kurt on the ceiling. 

  
  


"We've got a D! A! S! Disastrous Accent Shortage! We hear you've got plenny o' accent lyin' around!"

  
  


"Vhat do you vant? How deed you geet into my room?"

  
  


Pyro winked importantly at Gambit. 

  
  


"See, I told you we'd find someone with enough accent left over to share."

  
  


"But he's German…!"

  
  


A puff of smoke and Kurt was standing before them, seriously upset that his angsting was being disturbed.

  
  


"Ja, I am German! Who vants to know? Vhat do you vant?"

  
  


This was Kurt's way of talking. Almost all 'w's became converted to 'v's, and he used random foreign words in his dialogue. That was allowed, because Kurt had a German Accent™, and was therefore permitted to wreak havoc with the English language.

  
  


"Oi" Pyro beamed happily. "Anotha stereotype We should form a club er sumthin'" 

  
  


Kurt, meanwhile, staggered backwards, aghast. Had he just been out-accented? Had this Aussie-fied maniac actually pulled off a worse ethnic stereotype than him?

  
  


"Mein Gott…" he breathed reverently. 

  
  


"Wot's that s'posed ta mean, mite? Ya got sumthin' in yer thraot?"

  
  


That was it. Kurt, the reigning king supreme of annoying, overdone accents, bowed to the master. Pyro blinked in confusion.

  
  


"Oy daon't get it."

  
  


"Stop! I cannot take eet anymore! You have won!"

  
  


"Won wot?"

  
  


"Get out of here! Ees it not enough you have broken my pride?"

  
  


Gambit, now thoroughly alarmed, reversed a current trend and ended up dragging Pyro down the hall. 

  
  


~

  
  


They had hardly gone ten feet before they ran smack into the broad chest of a very enthusiastic Logan. Gambit screamed girlishly at being startled, while Pyro beamed hugely. 

  
  


"I have an accent!" Logan gushed, as though he were telling them that he'd found the cure for cancer. 

  
  


"Me too!" Pyro gasped. "Wot a coincidence!" Elbowing Gambit, he added, "TOLD you awl the X-Men had accents loike me!"

  
  


Gambit, meanwhile, felt nauseated. All this time he thought the two most insane people in the world were Quicksilver and Pyro, and if he ever went looking he could find other sane beings like himself. He was rapidly being shown that the entire world was populated by people of Pyro's brain capacity. 

  
  


"Oy have an Australian Accent™" the Fiery One rambled on, jerking a thumb at his chest. "And you? Wot's yoahs?"

  
  


Logan opened his mouth to respond energetically, but no sound came out. His jaw remained slack, the smile fading from his face and his eyes squinting in concentration. 

  
  


What kind of accent did he have? It was an accent, yes, but what? He scrambled for any memory of his country/state of origin, but then was reminded that he had amnesia or something. 

  
  


Brain freeze. The eyes turned glassy and the drool formed again. 

  
  


"What have you done?" Gambit hissed nervously. "You're going to make his head explode!"

  
  


"Oy only asked him wot-"

  
  


"Never mind. Let's just get out of here."

  
  


Seizing Pyro by the collar of his t-shirt, Gambit proceeded to charge down the hall with authority and confidence. 

  
  


~

  
  


The power and confidence were now all but gone. 

  
  


Gambit had no idea where he was. 

  
  


For a place that didn't look so big from the outside- okay, it did look big, but inside it was huge. It was like being in a self-sufficient city. No, country. Every hallway led to another fork in the, er, hall, which led to another, which led to a staircase, and another fork. 

  
  


"How do they find their way around in here?" Gambit panted desperately as they found yet another split in the path.

  
  
  
  


"Dunnao." Pyro shrugged. "Experience? Trial and erra?"

  
  


At last, exhausted and with not an ounce of bravado left to summon, Gambit allowed himself to slump against the wall in what he considered righteously justifiable confusion. 

  
  


"It's a trap!" he said wildly. "This whole mansion is a deathtrap designed to catch and kill people like us who bust in looking for trouble!"

  
  


"We'ah not lookin' foah trouble!" His companion pointed out patiently. "We'ah lookin' foah accents." 

  
  


Gambit would hear none of it. He continued the slump and ended up sitting dejectedly on the floor, waiting for some malicious X-Man to come around the corner and finish him off. At least that would end his suffering. 

  
  


"Look," Pyro continued, oblivious. "We'll just start openin' doahs and stuff! We'ah bound ta run inta someone who can give us a hand!"

  
  


To demonstrate, he threw open the nearest door and bounded inside. Seconds later, brooms clattered to the floor and a painful moan was heard. Pyro staggered out with a bucket over his head. 

  
  


"Wrong doah..." he said, dazed.

  
  


Gambit, frustrated, leapt to his feet in rage. 

  
  


"Oh, it's that easy, is it? Here, let me try!"

  
  


And he, too, yanked open a door and raced inside. He ended up crashing into shelves and shelves of sheets, realizing too late that it was the linen closet. He emerged doing a smashing impression of the Mummy. 

  
  


Pyro, pulling the bucket off his head, starting laughing hysterically. 

  
  


"Gambit!" He howled. "Yoah comin' out of the closet!"

  
  


Without thinking, Gambit kinetically charged up a pillowcase and winged it at Pyro for this unforgivable insult. Of course, Pyro ducked, and the pillowcase ended up slapping up against the wall, staying there with the help of static cling. 

  
  


"DUCK AND COVAAAH!!!" Pyro wailed, scrambling out of the way. 

  
  


Gambit covered his head stupidly and huddled down in the bed sheets he was still wrapped in, thinking that they might shield him from flying debris. 

  
  


The pillowcase exploded hugely (perhaps he had charged it up a bit too vigorously...), blasting a five foot by five foot hole in the wall. As the smoke cleared, Gambit coughed loudly and blinked like a turtle coming out of its' shell. He spotted Pyro a little ways down the hall, screaming and staggering around with a long shaft of wood impaled in his chest. Even from this distance, Gambit could see it was just tucked under his arm. 

  
  


"Come off it." he snarled crossly. 

  
  


Pyro dropped the shaft and stuck his tongue out. He then went about shaking his head wildly, sending little flecks of debris flying out of his spiky hair. Gambit narrowly avoided getting one in the eye. 

  
  


He then became aware of a third person coughing in the smoke. 

  
  


"Aw, cripes!" he yelped. "X-Men! They'll tan our hides!"

  
  


It turns out they had demolished the wall to one of the many entertainment rooms, interrupting Rogue as she watched Taxi Driver for the ten millionth time. It was just at the 'milk, white bread, and peach brandy' scene, so she was ticked off. 

  
  


She emerged through the entertainment room's new 'door' and over the debris. The first thing she saw was an Acolyte picking plaster out of his ear and muttering something about "it was just a joke, didn't need to blow the place up". The second thing she saw was a mound of bed sheets heaped in the rubble with a head sticking out of the top. 

  
  


"Hello?" she called tentatively. 

  
  


"G'day!" Pyro called back automatically. 

  
  


"Shhhh!" Gambit ordered fearfully. 

  
  


"Hey!" Rogue barked, now satisfied that they were no immediate threat. "You jus' blew a hole in our wall! What're ya'll gonna do about it?

  
  


"Oi!" Pyro cried before Gambit could stop him. "Anotha accent! Oy'm a bloody genius! Oy knew it!"

  
  


"Knew what?" Rogue was defensively suspicious. 

  
  


"Moi buddy here is lookin' foah his accent. He lost it er sumthin. And Oy says to him, Cam on! Everyone knaows awl the X-Men have accents! And Oy was roight! A'course, wot else is new..."

  
  


He broke off so that he could smirk at the guy in the bed sheets, who was now struggling to free himself. 

  
  


"Look, I didn't mean to blast a hole in your wall," Bed Sheet Guy was fumbling for excuses while fumbling to get out of the sheets. "We were just trying to find our way out. Now if you'll excuse me, we'll just be on our way... Hope we weren't too much trouble, chere..."

  
  


"THAT'S IT!!!!" Pyro screamed. 

  
  


"What? What? What?" Gambit was confused. 

  
  


"THE ACCENT!!!!"

  
  


With that gleeful cry, Pyro seized one of the bed sheets and yanked as hard as he could, uncoiling Gambit at an alarming rate and sending him spinning down the hall like a top. Rogue watched in confused amusement as the fire mutant proceeded to tackle the would-be Cajun just as he was trying to regain his balance. 

  
  


"That was it! You had it! You had it!" Pyro was all but dancing a jig on the dizzy Gambit's chest. 

  
  


"Pyro, you friggin' nutcase!" he choked out. "I can't breathe!"

  
  


Pyro hopped off, trying to be remorseful but too busy hopping from foot to foot in absolute excitement. 

  
  


"The accent! You had it! It's awl in yoah MOIND! Locked up in yoah BRAIN!"

  
  


By now, Gambit had lurched to a sitting position. 

  
  


"I don't have an accent! Just a weird, lilting way of talking!"

  
  


"But you do have an accent, mite!" Pyro was suddenly in his face, intense. "It's in yoah head. Oy heard it when you said that one French word. It was THEAH!!!"

  
  


The last word ended up spraying spit in Gambit's face, and he jumped to his feet, scrubbing it away with the back of his hand. He was on the verge of spouting a scathingly witty retort when he was interrupted. 

  
  


"Um, look," They whirled on Rogue, who was speaking nervously. "Why don't you guys jus' leave. Ah think it would be best if ya'll jus' left and stopped... destroying our house..."

  
  


"IT'S SOUTHERN!!!!"

  
  


All three of them spun around to see Logan racing down the hall towards them. Gambit threw up his hands to fend off an attack of some kind, Rogue was relieved that an adult was here to send off the intruders, and Pyro just stood there blinking. 

  
  
  
  


The first two's expectations would never be met. Logan bounded to a halt in front of Pyro, full of importance. 

  
  


"It's a Southern Accent™!" he exclaimed, proud of himself. "'Cause I use lots of conjunctions 'n stuff, and I say 'bub' a lot."

  
  


"Wooooooow!" Pyro applauded. "Oy'm impressed! So, Southern? Is it a Mississippi Accent™, or an Alabama Accent™, er...?"

  
  


He got no farther. The moment he had begun to question the Southern-ness of it all, Logan locked up. Mississippi? Alabama? There was more to it than just... Southern? So many choices... so... many... 

  
  


Glazed eyes. Drool.

  
  


"You idiot!" Rogue snapped. "This hasn't happened since Kurt asked him why he was wearing a bandage after we removed the brain chip, even though he has a healing factor!"

  
  


"Brain chip...?" Pyro asked dumbly. 

They decided to ignore Logan for the time being. Instead, Pyro grabbed Gambit by the arms and shook him violently. 

  
  


"We've got to foind a way ta keep that! That French thing you did! We've got ta bottle it and spread it through the rest of yoah dialogue!"

  
  


Gambit looked disturbed at the image of trying to bottle his moments of Cajun-ness and spreading them throughout the rest of his dialogue like peanut butter. 

  
  


"I don't know..." he squirmed. 

  
  


"Cam on! Wot can go wrong?"

  
  


He was unable to restrain his bitter, humorless laughter at this question. Sure, what could go wrong that hadn't already happened? 

  
  


"Wait a sec..." Rogue was studying him intently. "Aren't you the guy that gave me the exploding King of Hearts? What exactly were ya tryin' to communicate?"

  
  


"Um..." Gambit tugged on his shirt collar. 

  
  


"We daon't have toime foah this." Pyro said snootily. 

  
  


Again snatching Gambit's wrist, he turned and marched importantly back down the hall, regardless of the fact that he had no clue where he was going.

  
  
  
  


~

  
  


After much trial and error (basically, Pyro flinging open doors and finding laundry rooms), they hit the jackpot. 

  
  


"It'll be this doah, Oy'm sure of it!"

  
  


Shoving it open, he was rewarded with a girlish shriek of surprise, and seconds later was splashed in the face with pink nail polish. He staggered off down the hall, screaming and clawing his eyeballs, while Gambit was left to face the horrors within. 

  
  


"Like, who are you? What do you think you're, like, doing here?"

  
  


Kitty Pryde was holding a bottle of blue nail polish at the ready, so Gambit stumbled through a lame explanation. 

  
  


"Uh, well, you see, I'm looking for my accent, since I'm supposed to have one, but I don't, and that's bad, since my voice is like fingernails being grated across the chalkboard of my mind..."

  
  


His voice trailed away at Kitty's incredulous stare. He feebly demonstrated by scratching at the air. 

  
  


"Chalkboard of... my... mind...?"

  
  


Then the torture began. 

  
  


"Wow, that's like, so deep! I can't imagine what it would be like having, like, an annoying voice! Especially, like, if my voice was annoying to, like, other people! That would, like, totally suck! I mean, like, if your voice bothers you and you're like, upset about that, you should like, get some, like, help, or like something! 'Cause like, it's like, not cool to have like, an annoying voice. I like, totally wouldn't know what's it's like, like, because I like don't have one, and I like totally-"

  
  


"STOP! STOP THE MADNESS!"

  
  


Gambit ran wailing down the hall and crashed smack into a blinded Pyro, and the two fell head over heels down a convenient winding staircase, receiving many bruises on their flesh and egos. 

  
  


They ended up barreling into Professor Xavier at top speed, sending his wheelchair careening out of control and sailing across the carpet at alarming speeds, heading (of course!) towards another staircase. 

  
  


Gambit looked up in time to see him frantically trying to slam on the brakes, only burning his hands when he tried to grab the scorching rubber wheels. 

  
  


"Aw, SHIT!" Gambit yelled and covered his eyes. 

  
  


He expected to hear something like this:

  
  


THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! SMASH! CRASH! SHATTER! BONES BREAKING! HEAD SPLITTING OPEN! LIFE IN PRISON FOR KILLING A HANDICAPPED OLD MAN!

  
  


Instead he heard something like this:

  
  


"Oh my GOD! PROFESSOR X!" LUNGE! CATCH! "What HAPPENED?? Who DID THIS?? What kind of twisted mind would push a wheelchair-bound man towards a STAIRCASE??"

  
  


Peeking out from between his fingers, he saw a frazzled Scott Summers clutching a dazed Professor X's wheelchair handles with a white-knuckled grip, nerves obviously shot to hell from such a close call. 

  
  


Scott, meanwhile, was looking around for the culprit, already searching for Pietro Maximoff, the only person deranged and evil enough to do such a heinous thing. Instead, he spotted the two bruised and confused Acolytes all tangled up at the foot of the first staircase. Fire built up behind his sunglasses. 

  
  


"YOU!" He screeched, voice cracking from the stress. "Hold it right there! What are you doing here? WHY DID YOU TRY TO KILL THE PROFESSOR??"

  
  


"We didn't try to kill him..." Gambit whimpered, fearing his imminent demise or at least painful punishment. "It was an accident... fell down stairs... nail polish... Valley Girl... so scared... very sorry, never happen again..."

  
  


Professor Xavier had now sufficiently composed his rattled mind, and now trusted himself to open his mouth without a string of incoherent gibberish coming out. He spoke in his best Calm and Benevolent Patriarch mode. 

  
  


"Scott," he said solemnly. "I believe these boys when they say it was an accident, and I believe them when they say it will never happen again." Forcing a kindly smile on his face when he really wanted to scream and wheel away as quickly as he could, he said, "May I ask what you are doing in the Institute?"

  
  


Gambit waited for Pyro to lunge in with his usual looking-for-the-accent spiel. Instead, his companion was lying flat on his back with his arms and legs sticking crazily up in the air, the pink nail polish now drying on his face and sealing his eyes and mouth shut. 

  
  


~

  
  


It was Kitty's idea to dunk Pyro's head in nail polish remover. 

  
  


So all the fingers pointed accusingly at her when Pyro flew backwards from the basin, screeching about all the flesh being seared from his skull. He managed to zero his bloodshot eyes in on the Valley Girl, who grinned vapidly. Pyro realized he couldn't kill her; he felt too sorry for her. It's like not killing a snail that slimes you, because you feel sorry for it. How would you like to be so stupid? 

  
  


Instead, he accepted the water-soaked towel that Gambit offered and scrubbed his face throughly.

  
  


"Oy can't feel me lips..." he moaned. 

  
  


"It will pass." Professor X assured, desperately hoping it were true. 

  
  


Scott was popping Valium in the background; he did not handle stress well. A nap would do him some good. He staggered out of the room, snarling half-hearted threats at the two Acolytes. 

  
  


There was a drawn-out moment of uncomfortable silence. Suddenly, the doors crashed open and Logan barreled in, bounding to Pyro and standing before him like a Padawan seeking approval from his Jedi Master. 

  
  


"It's a Tough Guy Southern Accent™!" he stated grandly. "The kind that can't be traced to any state, but is rather a combination of all of them, plus something untraceable!"

  
  


His beaming smile would have lit up New York City during the blackout.

  
  


"Oy'm proud of ya, mite." Pyro said solemnly, patting his shoulder. "It's a beautiful thing when a man discovahs his innah accent."

  
  


"Good has been done here." Professor X stated, hoping to wrap things up and get these freaks out of his house. "I suppose your mission has been accomplished."

  
  


"But we weren't lookin' foah HIS accent, we were lookin' foah-"

  
  


Pyro got no further. Gambit slapped a hand over his mouth and gave the X-Men a forced grin. 

  
  


"Yes, well, thanks for all the help! We'll just be going now!"

  
  


With that, he dragged his struggling comrade down the main hall and out the front door, pausing to thank God that he had found it. About to leave the grounds, he ran into Rogue waiting at the front gate. 

  
  
  
  


"So..." she mused. "Did you find your accent?"

  
  


"Well..." he purred in a lazy Cajun drawl. "Remy be thinkin' that maybe he did, chere."

  
  


Winking at her smugly, he continued down the road, ignoring her look of surprise, ignoring the sound of Pyro's jaw falling open in shock. 

  
  


It had been a good day. 

  
  


~

  
  


Meanwhile, Jean Grey was walking through Bayville, window shopping and preening her hair, when a rush of wind caught her off guard. 

  
  


A smirking Pietro stood before her. 

  
  


"Hey," he wondered. "Why don't you have a code name?"

  
  


And then Pietro zipped along his merry way, leaving turmoil and doubt in his wake.

  
  
  
  
  
  


~ The End

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
